March 16

March 16-

1751 - US President James Madison is born. Nothing cigar related here- just read some of his quotes. Really- look that shit up on Google. Or click on this: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_madison.html

1881 - Barnum and Bailey Circus debuts. Barnum and Bailey soon traveled to Africa to procure an elephant for their show and when they observed 2 elephants mating, Barnum proclaimed “Watching elephants fuck is the greatest show on earth!” A modified version of this exclamation became the new slogan for their circus.

1915 - Federal Trade Commission organizes. CRA organizes a conference at a luxury hotel in Havana,Cuba to discuss the implications this will have for the future.

1968 - Robert F. Kennedy announces a presidential campaign. Kennedy looks to his brother’s secret stash of Cuban cigars to celebrate, but finds that they have all been stolen by former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to pay off loan sharks and pimps. 

2011 - U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, publicly announces she will retire rather than serve a second term in 2012 if President Obama is re-elected. In disgust, Hilary told an aide, “I’d rather smoke one of Bill’s twat-soaked cigars than have to serve with Obama again.”

January 19-

Has it been almost 3 years since the last post? Wow, time flies. This is the problem with blogs. It's very difficult to keep them going on a regular basis for an extended period of time.

1809 – Edgar Allan Poe is born. Known mostly for his writing, Poe was also a lover of cigars. In 1834, he launched his own brand of cigars called “The Raven.” Since quality tobacco was difficult to find at the time, his cigar production was very limited and Poe printed directly on each box of cigars: “Quoth the Raven- Sell these at 3X MSRP- Never More”

1861 - Georgia secedes from the Union. Mike at Buckhead Cigars in Atlanta sends a dispatch to Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, asking “But we’re still keeping all the Waffle Houses, right?”

1919 – John H. Johnson, editor and publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, is born. Johnson’s grandson, Peter Martin Luther King Johnson, would go on to create the Tatuaje brand of cigars. Pete’s first specialty cigar, The Tatuaje Black, was created as an homage to his black heritage.

1937 - In the Soviet Union, the People's Commissars Council is formed under Viacheslav Molotov. A celebration dinner is held with cocktails and cigars. The Molotov Cigar was invented at the first meeting but never quite took off as a weapon of terrorism.

May 18-

1995 - Elizabeth Montgomery, actress (Bewitched), dies. Not widely known is the fact that Montgomery had an affair with both actors who played Darrin on Bewitched- Dick York and Dick Sargent. Both York and Sargent were cigar smokers, and in later years became friends through a mutual love of cigars. In a 1982 Playboy interview, Montgomery was asked which Dick she liked the best. Embarrassingly, Montgomery did not understand the question and gave a very shocking and lascivious reply.

1985 - The song "One Night In Bangkok" by Murray Head hits #3 on the charts. Insert your own joke here about a guy named Head singing a song about Bangkok.

1980 – Mount St. Helens in Washington State erupts. The eruption column rose 80,000 feet, depositing ash in 11 states. Washington Governor Theo Huxtable quipped, “It’s like 10 million cigar smokers all ashed at the same time.” It was later determined that a 33 year old George W Bush was responsible for allowing the previously dormant volcano to erupt.

1860 - Republican Party nominates Abraham Lincoln for president. Lincoln celebrates with a cigar, even though he normally despised smoke. After Lincoln’s nomination, leaders of the Democratic Party published letters of protest in local newspapers claiming that Lincoln was only popular because of biased coverage by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. This, as all historians know, led to The Civil War.

1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of France. By this time, cigar smoking was fashionable in France due to returning British and French veterans who picked up cigar smoking while serving in Spain. A tobacconist named Gauloises made a special cigar for Bonaparte to celebrate his monarchy. Napoleon found the cigar to be so strong, he said it was like smoking dynamite. Gauloises made a limited edition run of these cigars sold in his shop and called them ‘Napoleon Dynamite’. By 1806, individuals were re-selling the LE cigars on cigar forums at 3x MSRP.

January 24-

2011 - Lara Giddings becomes the first female Premier of the Australian state of Tasmania. At her inauguration celebration dinner, Giddings provided Cuban cigars for all the distinguished guests. After a night of raucous celebration, the intoxicated Premier initiated a wild orgy in the main ballroom. It is reported that during the debauchery, she demanded one man to burn her nipples with candles while the other gentlemen took turns having "backdoor" sex with her. This sexual act s now referenced in the Australian Urban Dictionary as a “Tasmanian Devil”.

1975 – ‘The Three Stooges’ actor Larry Fine, dies. Larry was an enthusiastic cigar smoker and enjoyed smoking 3-4 cigars a day. His cast mates on ‘Stooges’ frequently placed exploding cigars into Fine’s humidor as a practical joke. However, Fine grew tired of this joke and exacted his revenge during the taping of the 1936 short ‘Disorder in the Court’. Fine paid several teamsters $30 apiece to give Moe and Curly each a ‘Tasmanian Devil’.

1965 -Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Britain, dies at 90. Churchill’s dying request was for one last cigar, as long as it was Cigar Aficionado’s Cigar of The Year. When told that such a magazine did not yet exist, Churchill replied, “I shall wait.”

1936 - Benny Goodman and his orchestra record "Stompin' at the Savoy" on Victor Records. Goodman was an avid cigar smoker, and a heavy gambler. After a bad week of losses, Goodman pleaded for a loan from fellow musician Frank Sinatra. Sinatra granted the loan, but when Goodman couldn’t repay his debt, Sinatra recorded his own song called “Stompin on Goodman’s Balls”. It never did fare well on the charts, but it was always one of Sinatra’s favorite songs.

1918 – Televangelist Oral Roberts is born. Roberts is best remembered for pioneering TV evangelism and faith healing. Roberts once led a campaign to abolish all smoking, but secretly smoked 2 cigars a day. Thankfully, this has been the only instance in American history that a televangelist or religious leader committed any acts of hypocrisy.

1913 - Mark Goodson, TV game-show producer and creator of such game shows as Family Feud, is born. Goodson and Family Feud host Richard Dawson smoked cigars on the set of ‘Feud’, which irked some of the TV executives who felt it set a bad example for the production crew. Oddly enough, Goodson’s original concept for Family Feud was to make a pornographic game show titled “Family Fuck”. There were still 100 people surveyed, but the questions were all sexually themed, and contestants who answered the questions incorrectly had to perform various sexual acts on members of the other family. ABC President Martin Howzer wanted to put the show on the air late at night, but network censors refused to let ABC broadcast the show. America was a much more conservative country in the 70’s. The show would be tame by today’s standards.

February 18 -

1943 - William D. Cox buys the Philadelphia Phillies from Walter O’Reilly.  The deal almost falls apart when O’Reilly whispers to his attorney at the closing that “Cox is a sucker”.  Thinking he had been called a cocksucker, Cox storms out of the meeting.  The misunderstanding is eventually cleared up and the deal is finalized. Later, the two businessmen enjoyed cigars and aged scotch, while laughing about how good it is to be rich and white.

1954 – Actor John Travolta was born. One of Travolta’s first big roles was on the sitcom ‘Welcome Back Kotter’, where he played Vinnie Barbarino.  Tragedy struck the ‘Kotter’ set in season 3 when fellow actor Gabe Kaplan handed out cigars to all the ‘Sweathog’ actors after filming one day. The group enjoyed their cigars, but the smoke wafted to the other side of the studio where 2 children were playing. The smell of the cigar smoke dropped both kids dead on the spot, because second hand smoke is very deadly and will kill you on contact.

1965 – NFL star Frank Gifford holds an unconventional press conference wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigar.  Gifford announces his retirement from football to focus on his broadcast career, and “ho-ing around.” Nobody knew what that meant until 1997 when Gifford was found to be cheating on his wife, Kathie Lee Gifford.

1970 – Legendary cigar smoker, forum member (boomerd35/Troysephus), and founder of 'This Day in Cigar History' Troy Taormina was born. In 2006, President George W Bush issued an Executive Decree that all able bodied cigar smokers should send Troy a few of their finest cigars each year on February 18. Canadians were initially exempt from the decree, but in 2008, Canada’s Prime Minister agreed that Canadians should also honor the US decree to increase US-Canada relations.

February 8-

1922 - Radio arrives at the White House.  President Warren G. Harding would stop all business at 4:30 pm each day so that he could sit by the fireplace listening to the radio.  While listening to the radio, he would smoke a cigar and chat with his friends on the internet.  Harding’s daily routine became known as the “Fireside Chat”.

1926 - Walt Disney Studios forms.  The first Disney characters were quite different from the ones we have come to love over the years. Originally, Mickey Mouse smoked a cigar and cursed like a sailor. And Donald Duck (who has never worn pants) was originally named “Donald Dong”. Donald Dong was drawn with a large wang hanging down, but nobody noticed until the late 1950’s.

1991 - Roger Clemens signs record $5,380,250 per year Red Sox contract. His contract had a rider provision that the Red Sox would provide one box of Cohiba Cuban cigars for each start.  Clemens’ former trainer reported that Roger would inject the cigars with steroids and shove them up his ass just before he took the mound.

1992 - "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred peaks at #1. Many music fans were pushed to the edge of suicide by the constant barrage of this shitty song on the radio.  Then in 1995, the Macarena pushed those music fans over the edge. RIP, music fans.

February 1-

1901 – Actor Clark Gable is born.  In his later years, Gable smoked cigars to keep his cigarette addiction under control.  Although Gable’s most famous movie line was “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”, this line was added in post-production of ‘Gone With The Wind’ by the studio.  The original line was originally quite different.  In the original filming, when Scarlett asks “What shall I do?”, Rhett replies,”Fuck if I know. I got 99 problems, but a bitch aint one.”

1948 – Singer Rick James is born in Chicago, Illinois.  His father, Eldon James, gave cigars to everybody in the Parkdale Hospital waiting room telling each person as he handed out the cigar, “It’s Rick James, bitch!!!”.

1974 – ‘Good Times’ (spinoff from ‘Maude’) premieres on CBS. During the first week of taping, the actor who played Bookman was busted in real life for selling counterfeit Cuban cigars.  He only appeared on the show when he could obtain a work release from jail.  ‘Good Times’ floundered in the ratings during the first season and was almost cancelled.  The show only became a hit during the second season, after an episode where little Penny’s nipple accidentally slipped out of her shirt as JJ and the gang watched the Super Bowl.

1992 - Barry Bonds signs baseball's highest single year contract - $4.7 million. Bonds’ agent Jeff Boris pulls out 2 Montecristo Habanos from his coat pocket, and hands one to Bonds to celebrate the signing. Out of habit, Bonds injects the cigar full of steroids.  That Montecristo belted 43 home runs in the 1992 season, a new world record for a cigar.